Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan
I don’t watch the Royals, I kinda think its a stupid waste of time. But I’m not trying to cancel the whole lot for colonialism. I don’t even disparage or begrudge those who do watch the Royals. And though I might smirk right then and there if I were ever introduced to royalty, I would do whatever you’re supposed to do on that occasion. A curtesy, maybe, and a diversion of the eyes or some such. My mama raised us like that, with a certain look or strategically deployed slaps upside the head if me and my brothers were acting up in public. I had a thing for Princess Di, though. The tilt of the head I thought was cool. I’ve read that she did that because she was conscious of her height or wanted to convey her rapt attention to some lowly commoner’s remark. It never worked for me in the classroom though. “Something wrong with your neck, professor?” with quizzical look. And why do they call Camilla the “Queen Consort?” I know the proper definition, but consort also has a pejorative you’d think she’d want to avoid. As in “consorting with the enemy,” or “I know you been out here consorting with that woman’s husband!” Well, I admit to having had a kinda crush on Di so I might be biased. All sorts of late night talk show jokes there, given the fact that the Royals seem to be just like any other family, warts and all, except living perpetually on the dole.
But this blog is fair and balanced, prints all the news that’s fit to print and is not above groveling for clicks. So here is a human interest snippet from the Mercury News regarding the charitable funding and goings on of Prince Harry and Meghan:
When Prince Harry and Meghan’s Archewell Foundation released its annual report earlier this year, it made some amazing claims about the couple’s “impact,” linking their philanthropy to the delivery of more than 12 million COVID-19 vaccines globally and the resettlement of more than 174,000 Afghan and Ukrainian refugees in the United States. While some of these claims may be difficult to verify and could be the product of a carefully worded PR spin, newly obtained IRS documents confirm that Harry and Meghan’s nonprofit still donated generously to a number of causes in 2021 — to the tune of more than $3 million.
The documents also show that Harry and Meghan’s largesse is largely connected to the Bay Area. The more than $13 million they reported in total revenue for 2021 comes from two mystery donors. The substantively larger donation of $10 million came to Archewell via the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF), according to SVCF’s 2021 IRS documents, otherwise known as its Form 990. The SVCF is a powerful, Mountain View-based nonprofit that gave out “a record-breaking” $2.7 billion in grants to nearly 6,000 nonprofit organizations in 2021, according to its annual report. The SVCF is the largest supporter of nonprofits in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties and invested more than $548 million in nonprofits throughout the Bay Area in 2022, its website says.
Whether its because they are royals, or because they are on the outs with the rest of the family, Harry and Meghan get their share of complaints regarding the workings of their foundations. The news story below from Australia’s version of Fox News, alleging improper political activity, is one example. The royal watcher in the video, Lady Cromwell, has a really interesting background but she doesn’t know what she’s talking about regarding political activity. She should probably stick to royal watching without commenting on tax exemption.
darryll jones